About

RickB- Human, Artist, Fool.

Ynys Mon, UK.

The blog is called ten percent because of what Kurt Vonnegut wrote when remembering Susan Sontag - She was asked what she had learned from the Holocaust, and she said that 10 percent of any population is cruel, no matter what, and that 10 percent is merciful, no matter what, and that the remaining 80 percent could be moved in either direction.-

And I'm writing it because I need the therapy and I lust for world domination.

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Laura Flanders with- Rick Rowley of Big Noise Films, who was in Iraq and visited the scene of the shootings just the day after they happened, and senior fellow at Peace Action, Raed Jarrar.

Rowley (there a day afterwards) recounts that a survivor of the Apache attack died when troops ran over him virtually cutting him in half and both make the point this is not an aberration in spite of ROE but because of them. Also see Democracy Now-

these residents came and told me that the man who they drove over was alive, that he had crawled out of the van that had been shot to pieces and that he was still alive when the Americans drove over him and cut him in half, basically, with a Bradley or tank or whatever armored vehicle they were driving in.

Fresh evidence has emerged that British military intelligence ran a secret operation in Iraq which authorised degrading and unlawful treatment of prisoners. Documents reveal that prisoners were kept hooded for long periods in intense heat and deprived of sleep by defence intelligence officers. They also reveal that officers running the operation claimed to be answerable only “directly to London”.

The revelations will further embarrass the British government, which last month was forced to release documents showing it knew that UK resident and terror suspect Binyam Mohamed had been tortured in Pakistan.

The latest documents emerged during the inquiry into Baha Mousa, an Iraqi hotel worker beaten to death while in the custody of British troops in September 2003. The inquiry is looking into how interrogation techniques banned by the Government in 1972 and considered torture and degrading treatment were used again in Iraq.

Lawyers believe the new evidence supports suspicions that an intelligence unit – the Joint Forward Interrogation Team (JFIT) which operated in Iraq – used illegal “coercive techniques” and was not answerable to military commanders in Iraq, despite official denials it operated independently.

And as this video from rethink Afghanistan demonstrates the meek response and internalisation of propaganda is working, the first minute is concerned with US military casualties, then it turns to Iraq casualties and tremulously announces –At least 95,639 confirmed civilian deaths. History is written by the winners and it turns out they even get to rewrite what dissenting voices say. I know that they are after a wide US audience so deference for the imperial military forces and the civilian toll of the ongoing crimes have to be politely alluded to at best, but seven years on this does begin to indicate those who enacted this war will get to own the narrative. All helped by a hysterically embedded media, this by Barbara Plett is not much of a serious piece, it is a glorified film review of fugitive rapist Roman Polanski’s latest, but there is a telling passage-

The drama also has Adam Lang – holed up in a villa in Martha’s Vineyard – decide to stay in the United States for fear of arrest if he returns to Britain. Technically this is a feasible scenario. As a state that has ratified the Rome Treaty, Britain would be obliged to arrest anyone for whom the ICC had issued a warrant, although it had not yet for Mr Lang. The US has not ratified the treaty so it is not similarly obliged. However some legal experts are sceptical that Washington would protect such a high profile fugitive from justice, no matter how close an ally.

If Blair was ensconced in the US the White house would extradite him to face war crimes charges, she reports this expert opinion as if that would ever happen, bless. She also avoids mention of the crime of aggression and that a Chief Nuremberg prosecutor Benjamin Ferencz said-

“The United Nations charter has a provision which was agreed to by the United States, formulated by the United States, in fact, after World War II. It says that from now on, no nation can use armed force without the permission of the U.N. Security Council. They can use force in connection with self-defense, but a country can’t use force in anticipation of self-defense. Regarding Iraq, the last Security Council resolution essentially said, ‘Look, send the weapons inspectors out to Iraq, have them come back and tell us what they’ve found — then we’ll figure out what we’re going to do. The U.S. was impatient, and decided to invade Iraq — which was all pre-arranged of course. So, the United States went to war, in violation of the charter.”

And it is neither historically remarkable or psychologically surprising that supporters and/or beneficiaries of slaughter deny the scale of the damage (beneficiaries are anyone still climbing upwards in their career who know it is best not to focus too strongly on deaths we cause as opposed to the evil ‘other’). There are people who deny the Holocaust, there are people who deny the death toll in Iraq, they are of the same ilk, quit whining and own your historical antecedence, you want good war, you have to hide bodies, real fucking simple. Deny the the best correlated figures of a million plus but know who you are making common cause with. There are 2.76 million Internally Displaced Persons and the figures for refugees who fled Iraq are complicated because of the necessarily scattered nature and multiple different countries reporting methods but the figure was 1,977,000-2,377,000(est.) one year ago, there is yet to be profound changes to their circumstances, in fact they are becoming worse.

Jeremy Scahill, 2007– Precise data on the extent of U.S. spending on mercenary services is nearly impossible to obtain — by both journalists and elected officials–but some in Congress estimate that up to 40 cents of every tax dollar spent on the war goes to corporate war contractors. At present, the United States spends about $2 billion a week on its Iraq operations.

Politicians, commentariat & high ranking military & intelligence personnel who conspired on the lies to enable the war have seen their careers & personal wealth flourish, those who opposed, told the truth and still do… Well at least Craig Murray got to be played by Doctor Who on Radio 4. Likelihood that because none of the prosecutors of this war have suffered adverse legal or criminal sanction that they will do it again- 100%. History & business as usual.

PLAID Cymru’s Westminster leader [MP Elfyn Llwyd] yesterday revealed he has seen a top secret document that he says “proves beyond doubt” Tony Blair did a deal with George Bush to invade Iraq one year before the war.

Meirionnydd Nant Conwy MP Elfyn Llwyd insists he has seen highly confidential documents that prove “incontrovertibly” that the two men reached an agreement 11 months before the invasion.

Mr Llwyd said: “I think other things should have been pursued (at the inquiry), in particular the detailed conversation at the ranch in Crawford in April 2002.

“I do know for certain that the deal was struck, so just to pretend months down the road that no deal had been struck I think is unforgivable. I have offered to give evidence and Chilcot has said ‘I’ll come back to you’.”

Mr Llwyd said when the classified document was leaked to him five years ago the security forces became aware and that led to a visit from the Metropolitan Police. Asked if he still had the document he said: “No comment.”

He added: “I’m sorry I am being cagey about it, I simply don’t want the plod knocking on my door again. It created a huge interest among the intelligence community and a section of the Met came.

Evidence relating to the death of Government weapons inspector David Kelly is to be kept secret for 70 years, it has been reported. A highly unusual ruling by Lord Hutton, who chaired the inquiry into Dr Kelly’s death, means medical records including the post-mortem report will remain classified until after all those with a direct interest in the case are dead, the Mail on Sunday reported. And a 30-year secrecy order has been placed on written records provided to Lord Hutton’s inquiry which were not produced in evidence. The Ministry of Justice said decisions on the evidence were a matter for Lord Hutton. But Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker, who has conducted his own investigations into Dr Kelly’s death, described the order as “astonishing”.

This as even the not under oath establishment are pretty conclusively saying, Iraq was an illegal war-

The Independent on Sunday understands that Ms Wilmshurst will tell the Iraq inquiry that she was not “a voice in the wilderness” in harbouring doubts over the legitimacy of military action without UN backing. Instead she is expected to describe how senior colleagues in the FCO shared her reservations, which were ultimately overruled by ministers. And, crucially, she is also expected to claim that her former boss, Sir Michael Wood, “clearly advised” that the conflict would be illegal under international law, when he offered his assessment of the situation to the then attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, days before the attack on Baghdad began. Philippe Sands QC, an expert on the legality of the war, last night claimed the inquiry had received documentary evidence of Sir Michael’s reservations – but is yet to publish it.

The Observer has been told that Sir Michael Wood, who was the FO’s most senior lawyer, is ready to reveal that, in the run-up to war, he was of the opinion that the conflict would have been unlawful without a second UN resolution.

Oh not to mention that’s what an official Dutch inquiry also found. And in terms of official cover up of murder this reminds me of the revelations about the coroner who performed the autopsy on Blair Peach, he was a right wing police loving McCarthy-esque political activist-

Government officials withheld a document relating to the death of Blair Peach, the anti-fascist campaigner widely believed to have been killed by police in 1979, because they feared it would portray the coroner as biased and lend weight to calls for a public inquiry.

The inquest, at which several suspected officers gave evidence, controversially returned a verdict of “death by misadventure”, and the coroner, the late Dr John Burton, was accused by Peach supporters of prejudicing the jury.

Documents held at the National Archives at Kew reveal senior civil servants became concerned after discovering Burton had penned an “unpublished story” about the Peach death which railed against what the coroner saw as a leftwing campaign to destabilise the legal establishment.

Burton had also written to ministers before the end of the inquest, dismissing the belief that Peach was killed by an officer as political “fabrication”.

Burton began writing to ministers about what he believed was “a widespread campaign to damage the institutions of the law” in January 1980, before the inquest had finished.

In letters to the home secretary, lord chancellor and attorney-general, he complained that an organised and well-funded campaign was spreading disinformation about the death. He criticised media organisations, including the BBC, which he accused of “biased propaganda”.

Referring to some of the 11 witnesses who said they saw police attacking Peach, he noted how some were “totally politically committed to the Socialist Workers Party” and concluded: “The witness statements show that the story of the killing [of Peach] is a fabrication. This is a matter of fact and not of opinion.”

After the verdict, Burton authored a lengthy article entitled The Blair Peach Inquest – the Unpublished Story and told civil servants he planned to disseminate the report to fellow coroners via the Coroners Society’s annual report. A Home Office official noted how Burton was “extremely irate” at the way in which he thought the inquest had been hijacked by the “extreme left”.

When his unpublished report was circulated in Whitehall in June 1980, it caused alarm. “I am a little disturbed at the proposal,” one official wrote, “as I feel that if [his article] fell into the wrong hands it would be used to discredit the impartiality of coroners in general and Dr Burton in particular.”

The civil servants met with Burton on to dissuade him from going public. After the meeting – and with apparent relief – an official relayed the news colleagues. “He accepted our advice that the whale which exposes his surface invites harpoons, and agreed not to publish.”

Burton’s seven-page report is a description of Peach’s death and the subsequent inquest which, at times, implies a hostility toward Peach supporters. He complains about “the usual demonstrations by the usual people” outside the courtroom, and expresses frustration at what he saw his inability to control contemptible reports in the media.

He dismissed some witneses as telling “palpable lies” and, in an apparent reference to Sikhs who gave testimony, complained that some “did not have experience of the English system” to give reliable testimony. In contrast, he appeared to have more sympathy for the officers at the scene of Peach’s death, even though there were also inconsistencies in their evidence.

“Many policemen pointed out that in such a situation one looked upwards for uncoming bricks and not around to see what others were doing,” he wrote.

And in 70 years, no one will be alive to be held to account, not for Kelly’s death not for a single Iraqi death. See how that works? It’s called a clean getaway.

This transcends its purpose and becomes a testimony to the intelligence, honesty, humanity and integrity of people and the failure for those qualities to be made essential in our elites. I’m going back to read some more, have a look yourself.

Allegations that a 62-year-old Iraqi grandmother was tortured and executed by British soldiers after her family home was raided three years ago are being investigated by the Royal Military Police.

The Army’s involvement in the death and abuse of Sabiha Khudur Talib is one of the most serious charges to be made against Britain during its six-year occupation of southern Iraq.

UK government ministers are to be given previously unseen police reports from a Basra crime unit which conclude that Mrs Talib’s body was dumped on a roadside in a British body bag in November 2006. There was a bullet hole in her abdomen and her face had injuries consistent with torture, police reported.